Not Fade Away
by Garbage and City Lights
Summary: When Lana returns to the doctor's basement, jealousy and seduction are the weapons of Marilyn's choice. (Continuation of "And Now You're Mine")
1. Chapter 1

She ran the tips of her fingers down the cool, shiny surface of the doctor's metal workbench. Her eyes played along the sharp edges of each deadly tool. The time had come for her to choose, and choose she would.

Should she use the saw? Or perhaps the wicked-looking set of surgical scissors?

Marilyn was still deep in contemplation, weighing the benefits of each instrument against another, when a powerful deep-throated scream pierced her ears.

"Jesus _fucking_ Christ," she muttered, turning from the workbench to fix a stony glare on Lana. "Give it a rest already. You know the basement's soundproof."

_"Get me out of here!" _the reporter shrieked as she pulled like a madwoman at the leather restraints on her arms and legs.

"It's been forty-five minutes already, just let it go," Marilyn said, almost feeling a twinge of sympathy for the other woman. She had never successfully escaped Thredson's clutches but she could imagine how soul-shattering it must be to get out once and somehow find yourself back here in this dark, hopeless place.

Lana dissolved into a series of anxiety-stricken sobs; she was probably bordering on a panic attack, but if she passed out the doctor would just revive her with an oxygen tank, so Marilyn went back to perusing the tools intently.

"How is she?" Oliver asked in an excited voice, descending the stairs with the playful energy of a little boy on holiday.

"Loud," Marilyn responded absently. She touched the handle of what looked like a forceps and found it surprisingly cold.

"Oh, our Lana's plucky, that's for sure." Thredson moved across the basement like a determined jungle cat that's spotted its prey. When he reached the bed he seized Lana's face and forced her to meet his eyes. "Breathe. Slowly."

The words were not a suggestion, but a command. Her breath hitched in her throat but after a moment the sobs stopped and she grew quiet.

Convinced she was behaving, Oliver released Lana's face and turned towards Marilyn as she looked his apparatus over with great interest.

"Have you chosen?" he whispered in her ear, slipping his arms around her waist from behind. She arched her back against him.

"I can't decide," Marilyn said thoughtfully, and he tilted her head towards him, capturing her lips with his, delving his skilled tongue deep inside her mouth. A fresh burst of weeping erupted from Lana's direction but they paid her no heed.

"Please," she begged, broken, tugging helplessly at the tight restraints on her limbs. "Please, please, please…"

Oliver ignored her and drew out the kiss, cupping Marilyn's left breast in the palm of one strong hand. When they parted he smiled, both innocent and devious all at once.

"The scalpels give the cleanest cut," he murmured, bringing his other hand up to caress her waist. He started to feel along the rounded curve of her stomach but Marilyn twisted away, grinning playfully, and searched the wall of shiny metal tools for the one he'd suggested.

"You can't," Lana wept, hiccupping through her tears. "Please, Marilyn, I _trusted _you—"

"Shut up," Marilyn muttered. The persistent desperate thrum of the reporter's words were like termites eating their way through her brain – she could barely think.

"Oliver!" Lana abruptly switched tactics, fixing her frantic eyes on the doctor. "Oliver, don't let her do this, please, don't let her hurt me!"

"Shut _up," _Marilyn repeated, but Oliver moved towards the bed, and the first alarm went off inside her skull.

"You thought you were so clever," he said in a low voice, lightly fingering the leather cuffs that circled her wrists.

"Oliver, please," Lana begged. Her terrified eyes were that of a wounded animal in a trap; she looked frantically from the doctor to Marilyn, a sick sweat beading on her forehead. "You can't do this, please, you _know _I'm-"

"Baby?" Marilyn cut in, wary of the look spreading across Oliver's handsome face. She approached the bed slowly and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Don't let her confuse you."

Thredson turned to study her, his dark eyes scanning her expression as they so often did, determining her intent. She met his gaze without flinching.

Her will to escape had ebbed since the unsuccessful attempt to kill her captor, but not her will to survive. Survival had turned into a game, a treacherous game, one that must be played fast and smart.

There was simply no time to let Lana get the upper hand. _She _hadn't learned the game, and _she _became _them_, one of the enemies.

Marilyn would not become one of _them_. Not if she had anything to say about it.

"I'm not confused," he said at last.

"The scalpel?" she urged, nudging him a little with her hip. Oliver's brows twisted in thought. Something was happening, Marilyn could sense it, and it wasn't good.

"Perhaps," the doctor murmured, drawing her close, one hand on the slim curve of her waist, "we should take our time."

Marilyn's eyes traveled a slow path from Lana's tear-streaked face to Oliver, who stared at her now like a lion waiting for a weakened gazelle to fall.

"What do you mean?" she asked after a moment of tense silence.

"We destroyed the tape," he said, taking a blonde curl of her hair and smoothing it over thoughtfully with his thumb. "The threat is gone. She's ours now. To simply end things so quickly before we've had any _real _fun..." The doctor examined Lana's restrained body as a faint grin surfaced on his lips. "...it would be such a waste."

Marilyn hoped her face didn't betray the dread this suggestion stirred in her. She swallowed, and smiled, and pretended to consider his words.

"What did you have in mind?" Her tone was bright, curious, but oh this was bad, his warped mind was working in ways she couldn't even imagine, she could do nothing to stop him.

Oliver stepped closer to the bed, tugging Marilyn along with him, and took one of her hands in his. Lana stared fearfully up at them, silent at last.

"Did you know," he said softly, his hand on the back of hers, guiding her fingers towards the pale skin of the reporter's terrified face, "that our clever little Lana is something of a deviant?"

As Marilyn's fingertips began to caress her cheek, she winced and strained to move out of reach.

Marilyn frowned.

"I don't understand," she mumbled, watching the doctor move her hand against Lana's flesh in slow, tender strokes.

"She likes _women_," Oliver breathed huskily in her ear, and Marilyn could tell he was excited; the predatory pitch his voice took on when he became aroused was unmistakable. "She likes women the way she _should _like men. I did my best to cure her of this illness-"

"You raped me, you monster," Lana whispered, but her caged animal eyes remained on Marilyn, wary of her every movement.

"-yet she remains afflicted." The doctor swallowed and tightened his grip almost imperceptibly on her hand.

"I thought that was just a nasty rumor," Marilyn said, still frowning, trying to grasp what it was he was asking of her. The reporter lay unnaturally still on the bed, focused on Marilyn; her silence seemed to confirm Oliver's accusation.

"We could continue her treatment," Thredson murmured, lacing his fingers with hers, "together."

"Stay the fuck away from me," Lana spat, but Marilyn hardly heard the words. She was staring at the doctor, overcome by a strange new emotion seeping through her veins like a slow-acting poison.

Was he really suggesting they keep Lana alive? And why was he staring at the restrained woman with the same hunger Marilyn had grown to know so well?

Jealousy began to gnaw at the pit of her stomach with vicious little rat teeth.

"I don't know," Marilyn said softly. "I just... this seems wrong, somehow. Can't we just kill her? Be done with it?"

Lana barked a short incredulous laugh.

"You're both insane," she said, almost to herself. "You're out of your goddamn minds."

Marilyn felt a sudden wave of hatred, one so intense it nearly left her lightheaded. She untangled her fingers from the doctor's and placed the palm of her hand on Lana's throat. Their eyes locked, recognizing each other for what they were: two very different women caught in very different traps.

She began to squeeze, slowly.

"You would be wise to watch that smart mouth of yours, Ms. Winters," Marilyn said icily. She tightened her grip until Lana started to struggle against her bonds again. When she was sure the reporter was listening, Marilyn held her still, her red-laquered fingernails sunk firmly into the soft flesh of Lana's neck.

"If you're going to be here, you'd better learn the rules," she hissed, relishing the way Lana's muscles tightened beneath her palm, the rapid fluttery beat of her terrified pulse. "Do you understand?"

Lana's desperate eyes flicked to Thredson, seeking help, but he didn't move.

Marilyn wet her lips, then leaned forward so she and Lana were nose to nose.

"I may be a foolish little girl," she whispered, "but _I _sleep upstairs and _you _sleep in the basement. There's a reason for that."

Her gaze flicked to Lana's full lips; Marilyn smiled, then placed a chaste little kiss on the reporter's quivering mouth.

She barely had time to withdraw before Oliver seized her from behind, pulling her into his arms until his erection pushed gently into the small of her back.

"You never cease to surprise me," he growled in her ear. As Lana stared, horrified, the doctor slipped a hand beneath the hem of the little black dress Marilyn had chosen to wear for her final trip to the asylum. His fingers ran tenderly along the soft folds between her legs.

Thredson made a low sound of approval when he found her already warm and wet.

Marilyn was breathing heavily, still on a strange high from exercising her dominance over the doomed reporter - who now seemed to be grasping the hopelessness of her situation.

"Take me upstairs," she said bluntly over her shoulder. Oliver obliged at once, taking Marilyn by the hand and leading her away from Lana's bed.

"Wait, please," Lana begged as she began to thrash against her restraints again. "Please don't leave me down here, please!"

Marilyn paused to watch her struggle in vain.

"You're still alive," she murmured at last. "Enjoy it."

Oliver nudged her up the stairs, excited and insistent. As they ascended Marilyn listened to Lana's screams and, with great satisfaction, hit the lightswitch, plunging the basement into darkness.

They had only just entered the living room when the doctor pulled her against his chest, trailing ravenous kisses down the slope of her neck.

"You're the one," Thredson mumbled into her skin. "I was wrong about Lana, I was so wrong, it's you, it's you..."

The unfamiliar gnawing sense of jealousy skittered through her stomach on cold feet. Marilyn placed her palms on Oliver's cheeks, tilting his face towards hers.

"How long are we keeping her?" she asked frankly.

A strange little smile tugged at his lips.

"You don't like our new toy?" He began to guide her towards the couch, his hands on her waist. She tried to resist but his fingers had sparked a fire between her legs she couldn't ignore.

"You know I don't," Marilyn murmured as she leaned back onto the cushions, reaching for the zipper on his pants. The doctor moved liquidly atop her and returned to the curve of her neck, licking and biting with fervor.

"Poor baby," he said huskily, and while his condescending tone brought her back to her days in the basement, she felt a surge of wetness in her loins at his words. She wrapped her thighs eagerly around him.

"Why do you need her?" Marilyn released his erection from the confines of his neatly pressed work slacks and pulled his hips roughly against hers, burying him deep in her hot secret place. Thredson moaned against her skin, unprepared for how wet she was.

For a moment they were slaves to the sweet sensations between their legs; the doctor pumped in and out of her and she sighed softly, running her fingers through his thick dark hair.

Marilyn raked her red nails down the back of his neck and he groaned.

"You have me," she said at last, breathless.

Oliver bared his teeth and picked up speed, hitting over and over again that sinful spot deep inside that made her weak with pleasure.

"I do," he agreed. Then his brows knit together and he shuddered as he came, eyes drifting closed, hips slowing to a stop.

After savoring the afterglow Oliver pulled himself from her and stood to compose himself.

Marilyn remained on her back, unsatisfied. It was unlike him to forgo her orgasm and she found herself strangely bereft.

He buttoned his pants, then looked at her on the couch. Her disappointment must have been painted on her face because Oliver made a patronizing little clucking noise and returned to her side.

"I'm not replacing you," he murmured. When she didn't respond, Oliver began stroking her cheek tenderly. "Lana had her chance. She'll never be to me what you are."

And what was that? Lover, mother, or captive?

The doctor slipped an arm around Marilyn and pulled her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. She stared beyond him at the stairs that descended to the basement.

In the silence she thought she heard Lana screaming, but she couldn't be sure.

It was hard to be sure of anything.


	2. Chapter 2

She reached for him and felt nothing but the cool tangle of sheets left in his wake. Oliver's side of the bed was empty.

Marilyn sat up, the fog of sleep clearing from her head in a split second when she realized he was gone. The house was quiet, the kind of quiet where the silence actually seems thick and tangible, like you could reach out and touch it.

She listened for him, but he wasn't there.

Her stomach began to lurch sickly. It was Saturday; he had the day off so he wasn't at the asylum, he'd bought groceries earlier in the week... where _was _he?

Somewhere outside a lone winter bird began to sing. Marilyn placed her feet on the floor, chewing her lower lip. Was he in the basement? Had he begun to "play" with their new toy... without her?

Suddenly her heart was in her throat and last night's dinner with it. She bolted for the bathroom and just barely managed to fall to her knees before emptying her stomach into the toilet with one powerful heave. Marilyn coughed, spat. She stared at the sick in the pristine porcelain bowl for a moment, then pulled the flush lever and watched it disappear.

She had expected morning sickness. What she hadn't expected was the way she felt when the doctor's eyes lingered on Lana just a little too long.

Her fate seemed inarguable. She would stay with Oliver, she would do whatever it took to survive, to not end up like _them_. So when had it happened? When did the man who chained her up in the basement become something she considered hers, and no one else's?

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Marilyn gripped the corner of the sink and hauled herself up. She needed water, first, then she needed to check the basement.

She went to the kitchen like someone lost in a daydream. Her hands seemed to work of their own free will; as they found the pitcher and drinking glass, she wondered what she would do if she discovered Oliver and Lana together.

Marilyn supposed she might kill her. As for the doctor, she wasn't sure.

Water filled the pitcher. She waited until it was full then ran the tap in her drinking glass as well.

She drank slowly, rinsing the bitter acrid taste from her mouth. When the glass was empty, she placed it in the sink and took a fresh one from the cabinet. If Oliver wasn't downstairs, she'd let Lana have some water. If he was...

She'd figure that out when the time came.

Pitcher and glass in each hand, Marilyn descended the stairs into the basement.

The door swung open into the soundproof room, but she was greeted with no burst of noise - no screams, no moans, just silence. It was pitch dark.

She flicked the light on. The florescent bulbs she'd grown to despise buzzed to life and displayed Lana on the bed, restrained, asleep, alone.

Relief washed over Marilyn in waves. He wasn't here. She had worried for nothing.

Lana's forehead wrinkled as she came to, woken by the bright flood of light. For a moment she seemed to forget where she was; when her eyes fell on Marilyn, recognition and terror filled them.

"Stay away from me!" she croaked, already fighting against her leather restraints. "Don't come near me-"

"It's getting old," Marilyn muttered. As she filled the drinking glass with water from the pitcher she approached the bed, much to the reporter's dismay.

"I'm warning you-"

"Yeah, I'm shaking in my boots." She lifted the glass to Lana's lips, who pressed them together and shook her head. Marilyn exhaled sharply through her teeth, losing patience. "Oh come on, you bitch, it's _water_. Just drink it."

The reporter's wide brown eyes regarded her for a moment, skeptical, before she opened her mouth and began to gulp thirstily.

Marilyn let her drink almost all of it, then pulled the cup away and set it on the workbench along with the pitcher.

"Are you hungry?" she asked, looking at the doctor's tools with a faint longing. "I'm starving. I could make eggs."

"How do you do it?" Lana murmured. The strange tone of her voice caused Marilyn to turn to her, frowning.

"Do what?"

"Act like this is okay? _Normal? _God, you even seem to _enjoy _it."

Marilyn felt a little smile tugging at her cheeks.

"Oliver gets what he wants," she said thoughtfully. "It's useless to fight him. It's easier to just..." Her hands fluttered in a meaningless gesture. "...let him have it."

"I never stopped fighting," Lana whispered, and Marilyn laughed, a harsh barking sound that echoed off the walls of the basement.

"Yeah, look where that got you." She studied the reporter for a second, weighing her options, then sat on the side of the bed. "Can I give you some advice?"

"Do I have a choice?" Lana responded drily, averting her eyes. Marilyn seized her by the chin and forced the other woman to meet her gaze.

"Make the best of it," she said, serious. "You may have another chance at freedom. You may not. But you can't fight every day. You can't. It's... exhausting."

When Lana didn't respond Marilyn sighed and released her face.

"Do you want eggs or not?"

The reporter glared at her in silence. Marilyn stood and headed for the stairs.

"You're gonna learn," she called back just before hitting the lightswitch again, losing Lana in the darkness of the basement. "One way or another, you're gonna learn what you have to do to stay here. Or he'll be done with you. Just think about that."

* * *

She waited in the living room listening to the scratchy sounds of an old Billie Holiday record until she finally heard the slam of a car door in the driveway. Marilyn was dismayed to admit she felt like a puppy kept in a kennel all day waiting for its master to return even though only a few hours had passed.

The front door swung open and she hurried to meet him as the doctor entered, slim and handsome in his habitual button-up shirt and tie. Marilyn took his freshly-shaven cheeks in her hands and kissed him hard on the mouth. He dropped a small brown paper sack on the floor to draw her hips against his, returning the kiss eagerly.

"Where were you?" she murmured when she pulled away at last. "I thought you were-" Marilyn cut herself off, reconsidering her words. "-I didn't_ know_ where you were," she finished carefully.

"I didn't want to wake you," Oliver said, giving her waist a gentle squeeze. He seemed genuinely touched that she was so pleased to see him; his expression was the same she saw the first time she called him 'baby'.

"Next time, wake me." She smiled, still so relieved to find him here at the door and not writhing on top of Lana in the basement. Then she noticed the little brown bag on the carpet. "What's that?"

"This," he said excitedly, bending to retrieve it, "is going to make Lana's treatment much, much easier."

A cold slither of envy coiled around her heart but Marilyn bit it back.

"Oh?" she asked.

"I don't want to ruin the surprise," Oliver told her mysteriously. When he smiled it was his little boy smile, the one that was so charmingly crooked and meant only trouble.

He took her by the hand and lead her towards the basement and Marilyn gave in because, as she'd told Lana, the doctor always got what he wanted.

* * *

"Did you feed her yet?" Oliver trotted down the stairs and flipped the light back on, frowning.

"She didn't want to eat," Marilyn said, eyeing the reporter as she lifted her head from the pillow to watch them enter. "I offered her eggs. She was rude to me."

The doctor made a little sound of disapproval and moved towards the bed.

"Now Lana," he murmured, opening the paper bag, "this kind of behavior is unacceptable."

"Fuck you," Lana hissed. Thredson's lips twitched into another dark little smile, his troublemaking smile.

"You'll change your tune soon enough." He pulled a small bottle of pills out of the sack and waved it over Lana's face. Her eyes followed it warily. "It took me all morning but I found it."

"What is it?" Marilyn asked again, moving to his side. He absently placed a hand on the curve of her waist and pulled her close.

"This," said Thredson as he lifted the bottle so she could see, "is methylenedioxymethamphetamine." She cocked an eyebrow at the unfamiliar word.

"In English, doctor?"

"It's a stimulant." His dark eyes were bright with excitement behind the lenses of his glasses. "Some members of the psychiatric community use it to help foster trust between therapist and patient."

"No, no, no," Lana begged, tugging helplessly at her bonds.

"It increases production of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine," Oliver went on. "Basically, the drug stimulates the nervous system and increases positive emotions in the brain while reducing the negative."

Marilyn had a terrible sinking feeling.

"I've had such fine results with pharmaceutical treatments in the past," he said softly, giving her a knowing smile, "it seemed to make the most sense."

She remembered the powerful weed he'd brought her (and continued to bring her) and its undeniable effects. If he now had something for Lana, what did that mean, exactly?

As twisted as her situation had become, she didn't think she could bear to see the doctor with another woman, let alone the woman she considered her enemy.

It was time to play the game, and fast.

"How interesting," she purred, running a red-painted nail along the tiny prescription type on the label. Marilyn tipped her head towards his until their lips were nearly touching and wrapped her fingers around the bottle. "May I?"

"I insist," he whispered, and she smiled as the bottle slipped from his fingertips to hers.

She twisted off the white plastic cap and tapped the bottle against her palm. One small round tablet tumbled into her hand.

"I won't take it," Lana whimpered, but Marilyn reached towards her face and pinched her nostrils closed. The reporter thrashed back and forth; it only took a few moments before Lana's panic overwhelmed her and forced her mouth open to gasp for air.

Marilyn dropped the pill past Lana's lips and forced her jaw closed, one hand pressed firmly under her chin. Lana made a strangled sound of protest, struggling wildly against the leather restraints.

"How long does this take to kick in?" Marilyn demanded. The doctor was watching with utter fascination.

"I'm not sure," he murmured, rubbing his palms along the dark material of his pants. Marilyn shrugged.

"Better safe than sorry."

She kept Lana's mouth closed for what seemed like a very long time. The reporter's eyes darted crazily back and forth; slowly, her gaze began to glaze over, and Marilyn saw her muscles go slack. When it seemed safe she released Lana's jaw, stepping back in case she had chosen poorly.

The reporter breathed in and out, her chest heaving. She didn't say anything.

Oliver made a move towards the bed but Marilyn pressed the palm of her hand against his firm chest.

"Hold on, baby," she said softly, her gentle voice masking the cancerous jealousy coursing through her veins. "You told me yourself – she's not cured yet, right?"

Thredson's brows knit in confusion.

"Medically speaking, no—"

"Then let's make the transition a little… easier." She smiled, so demure and innocent, as she slid up onto the bed where Lana lay. Marilyn began to stroke the reporter's sweat-soaked hair with one careful hand. "Our little Lana has gone through quite a lot, hasn't she?"

Lana frowned lightly; her brow contorted as she tried to sort out the conflicting feelings in her brain.

Marilyn moved her hand to Lana's face, caressing the soft skin there; the other woman's eyes drifted closed at her gentle touch. She looked to Oliver, awaiting his diagnosis.

"I believe she's under," he said quietly, then shifted like his legs had fallen asleep. Marilyn knew he was itchy, anxious, ready to take their new toy for a spin.

But she'd be dead before she saw that happen. That much was certain.

She turned back to Lana and allowed her fingers to dip a little lower, over the silky curve of her collarbone. This time the reporter's hips twitched visibly; each touch seemed to affect her a little more.

"Poor baby," Marilyn whispered, echoing the doctor's words. She watched as her fingers traced a teasing path down Lana's chest, between her breasts, stopping just below the crease of her hips. Lana moaned weakly, her pelvis thrusting towards the touch.

"Marilyn," Oliver said, his voice a low warning, but she ignored him.

"She just needs someone to take care of her," Marilyn murmured as her face moved towards Lana's. "She just needs a… feminine touch." She hesitated, unsure if she was ready to cross this brave new territory. Then the image of Oliver on top of Lana invaded her thoughts, his hips pumping ravenously, his brows knitting in the way she had grown to know so well just before he came to orgasm.

Marilyn pressed her lips against the reporter's, delicate, not quite certain where to go next. Lana took the lead and thrust her tongue inside Marilyn's mouth, whimpering with desire.

It was the first time she'd kissed another woman. She found the experience pleasant, but not necessary. Lana felt thinner, less firm than Oliver, but it was a good kiss nonetheless. Something different.

On impulse she moved a hand over Lana's nightgowned breast, feeling the pebbly nipple rise hard under her touch. The other woman was arching her back towards her, little helpless sounds falling from her lips, but suddenly he was there, pulling Marilyn away from Lana's writhing body.

_"Enough!"_ the doctor roared, all at once a volcano of fury.

Marilyn was flung from the bed across the room; she crashed into the front of the workbench, knocking a few utensils loose to scatter across the cement floor.

"This," Oliver gasped, his shoulders heaving with the force of each breath, "is not what I had planned."

She grasped for the edge of the countertop and tried to pull herself to her feet.

"You bastard," Marilyn hissed. She saw the look of utter rage pass over his features but she went on, unable to stop the flow of angry words like bile from her throat. "You just want to fuck her while I watch? I'm not going to do it! I've _earned _this, I'm _better _than her!"

Thredson began to move towards her but she scrambled away like a cornered rat.

When she was halfway up the stairs Marilyn turned back to him, trembling.

"I'll leave," she said firmly. "You fix… this. Or I'll leave."

She waited just until his rage dissolved to fear at her words. Then she fled upstairs to the bedroom, locking the door behind her.

Marilyn knew there was every chance he'd break the door down behind her but she reasoned it was time to take this chance.

She screwed her courage to the sticking place.

And she waited for him to come out of the basement.


	3. Chapter 3

Marilyn waited.

She expected to hear the thunderous sound of his angry footsteps up the stairs, perhaps the sound of something breaking in his destructive path to the bedroom. Maybe he would shout. He very rarely shouted, but when he did it was terrifying.

The stunt she had pulled in the basement was more than enough to incur his wrath in many forms. She had never outright defied the doctor until today, and the aftermath was sure to be bloody.

She sat on the bed, knees pulled up under her chin, waiting for him to come after her. She knew he would. It was just a matter of when.

It was hard to tell how much time had passed when she heard the soft scrabble of fingernails on the wood of the bedroom door.

"Marilyn?" Oliver said quietly, his voice muffled.

Marilyn remained silent.

"Please come out," he pleaded, scratching again at the door. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I –" There was a quiet sound of him struggling for words before he gave up with a frustrated sigh. "—I don't want Lana. I want _you. _Please don't leave."

She swallowed hard and said nothing.

"Please." Thredson's voice was suddenly thick, shaky. "They _all _leave me. Just like my mother."

Marilyn felt a strange sensation in her chest as though she were very deeply underwater. It was a pressure, a painful weight settling on her heart. It hurt to hear him so vulnerable, so sad.

Oddly enough, her breasts began to ache.

"I can't lose you too," Oliver whispered on the other side of the bedroom door.

Marilyn licked her lips, then stood and approached the source of his voice slowly.

When she reached the door she hesitated. What if this was a trap? What if she gave in and he seized her by the throat, strangling the life out of her for disobeying?

_What if._ The phrase made her want to laugh hysterically.

She grasped the lock and turned it, then opened the door.

He was taken by surprise; his face had been almost pressed against the solid wood surface and the doctor stumbled slightly when she pulled it away. She looked him over once, noting the slump of his normally confident shoulders.

"I won't compete with her, Oliver," she said firmly. He shook his head hard like a scolded little boy proving he's learned his lesson.

"No, I understand."

"I mean it."

The doctor nodded. "I know." He paused, then held up a finger in a 'wait here' gesture and hurried past her into the closet in the bedroom. After a moment he emerged with something in his hands.

"I grew to suspect you didn't like the nightgown I'd chosen for you," he said, his usual self-assurance returning to him so naturally. "That's why I gave it back to Lana. This, I think, suits you more."

He held up a black satin negligee by its delicate straps, a dark little smile playing on his lips.

It looked a few sizes too large for her but it was best not to turn down the gift he was so clearly pleased with. Besides, it _was _a huge improvement over the cotton nightmare she'd worn for months.

Marilyn took the nightie from him, savoring how silky the material felt on her fingers. She missed her beautiful things she'd left at the house next door, things that were most likely gone. It was hard to believe her mother hadn't already cleared out all her forgotten possessions and sold the property by now though on occasion she entertained the fantasy.

Thredson had only snatched a few dresses (none of them her favorites) in the first few days of her captivity and these were rarely used since she never left the little bungalow except for her trips to the asylum. The negligee was a fond, unexpected reminder of the life she'd lived before the night she undressed for Oliver in her bedroom window.

However, why the doctor already had this stashed away in his closet was a question she didn't care to have answered.

"Thank you, Oliver," she breathed. He slipped a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up towards his.

"Put it on," he said in a low voice, the sinister smile still pulling at the corners of his mouth, "and let's go back downstairs."

* * *

As they descended the stairs together, Marilyn heard soft moans coming from the direction of Lana's bed. The reporter was squirming against her bonds, eyes closed, trying desperately to fight off the stimulant Marilyn had forced down her throat.

Oliver led Marilyn towards their captive, one gentle hand closed around her fingers. He clearly knew he was treading on thin ice and must proceed with caution.

"Aside from the bonding effect the drug has," the doctor murmured, pausing at Lana's bedside, "the patient may experience euphoria, enhanced tactile sensations, and arousal." He licked his lips and glanced to Marilyn. "Where would you like to... begin?"

She considered the scene with curious eyes. Lana writhed on the sheets, her helpless hands twitching inside their leather restraints. Oliver's diagnosis seemed right on target; the reporter was obviously aroused, cheeks flushed and pink, but in her current state she could get no relief.

Marilyn smiled.

"If we're going to cure this deviant of her attraction to women," she said seductively, taking Oliver by the end of his thin black necktie, "I think we should lead by example." She settled on the edge of the queen-sized bed, her back to Lana, and pulled him close so their lips nearly touched. "Shall we show her what she's missing?" Marilyn whispered.

The doctor grinned as she spread her thighs, displaying the part of her he craved so often and so ravenously.

"Your methods are interesting, Miss Jackson," Oliver growled, and moved between her legs, pressing the tented front of his pants against where she had begun to grow warm.

Lana groaned weakly behind them.

He took Marilyn's face in his hands and kissed her deeply, his tongue moving effortlessly with hers. He tasted of cigarette smoke and dark whiskey, just as he had the first night they were together.

The delicate strap of her new too-big negligee slipped off Marilyn's shoulder. Oliver pulled his mouth from hers and trailed hot wet kisses along her neck, following the strap's path down the curve of her arm. She moaned softly when she felt him graze her skin with his teeth.

As much as it pained her to admit, she was nearly dizzy with the relief that _she _was the focus of his attention, it was because of _her _that he was hard and ready inside his pressed work pants. She simply wasn't willing to share him with anyone else. She had given up too much already.

Oliver pushed the other strap down, running his strong hands along her bare shoulders as the front of the black nightie inched lower over the swell of Marilyn's breasts. They still ached faintly but the pain mixed almost pleasantly with her pleasure.

"No," Lana mumbled behind her, the leather restraints straining suddenly against the bedposts.

Marilyn ignored her and reached for the belt around Oliver's waist; she felt him grunt appreciatively into her skin as she began to unbuckle it.

_"No," _Lana said again, louder this time. Marilyn felt the other woman's weight shift drastically as she started to struggle with renewed energy. "No, Wendy, not with him, please!"

Thredson stopped kissing Marilyn's neck at once. He drew back and frowned beyond her at Lana, who continued to thrash uselessly against her bonds.

"How interesting," he said. His lips split slowly into a wolfish grin.

"What?" Marilyn twisted to see Lana staring at her with a strange sort of desperation.

"Please, baby, not with him," Lana whimpered, still trying to pull out of the leather restraints.

Marilyn looked back to Oliver in confusion.

"What is she talking about?" she demanded. Already his attention had shifted and it was infuriating.

The doctor chuckled, his eyes drifting back to Marilyn.

"Occasionally, the drug can produce _other_ side effects," he explained patiently. "She's hallucinating." A moment went by as she could see his sharp mind racing with thought.

"Who's Wendy?" she whispered, not certain if she wanted to know the answer.

Thredson moved out from between her thighs and reached towards Lana's wrists.

"What are you doing?" Marilyn asked, alarmed, but he waved her off.

"She's harmless in this state." He began to undo each of the leather restraints. Lana barely noticed him; her eyes were locked on Marilyn.

When her arms were free she reached for her.

"Wendy, baby, not with him," she pleaded, barely coherent, stroking Marilyn's blonde hair with a trembling hand. Marilyn looked to Oliver, unsure of what to do.

He raised his eyebrows in a 'go on' expression and unlooped the final restraint from Lana's ankle.

Marilyn hesitantly climbed onto the bed into the reporter's waiting embrace. Lana wrapped her arms around her, caressing her cheek, eyes darting over Marilyn's face as if taking in every feature.

"I thought I'd lost you," she whispered, and pressed their lips together in a tender kiss.

The words created a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of Marilyn's stomach but she could see Oliver watching intently in the corner of her vision. He seemed interested in the two women kissing now that it was Lana's choice - she was playing right into their hands.

Marilyn would not lose his attention. Not this time.

She parted Lana's lips with her tongue and felt the reporter melt into her touch. Oliver had said the drug lit up her nervous system, flooded her brain with nothing but good positive feelings, and after a day of strict captivity in the dark basement Marilyn assumed it was nearly heaven in her arms.

But as far as she knew, she wasn't in Marilyn's arms. She was with Wendy. Whoever that was.

Lana ran her fingers over the black satin of Marilyn's negligee, cupping her breast in her hand. Sensitive from what was no doubt the first production of her milk, Marilyn moaned softly as the other woman began to worry her hardening nipple between two skilled fingertips.

She was mildly surprised to find herself growing wet.

Marilyn leaned her back against the bed and Lana allowed herself to be led, looking up through eyes half-lidded with desire. It was becoming easier to be with this woman, to react with touches the way she'd like to be touched, to kiss where she knew she liked to be kissed. She positioned herself over her, knees on either side of Lana's legs. Marilyn glanced over to the doctor, who was rubbing his erection almost absentmindedly through his pants, staring at them.

She gave him a flirtatious little smile. It had a visible effect on him; he shifted and bared his teeth slightly as if he wanted to pounce.

Keeping eye contact with Oliver, she began to inch Lana's cotton nightgown up her midsection, exposing the creamy skin of her stomach. Marilyn ran her fingertips over the soft curves of the reporter's hip bones, just above the band of her plain asylum underwear. Lana moaned helplessly, her pelvis jerking at the touch.

Oliver licked his lips.

She looked away from him to focus on the task at hand. Marilyn drew one long red-lacquered nail teasingly over the small mound between Lana's legs, tracing the impressions of her folds. Lana's head rolled back on the pillow; her hands gripped the sheets like she was holding on for dear life. For a moment Marilyn wondered if perhaps the doctor would give her a dose of this miracle drug, considering its obvious effects.

"Wendy," Lana groaned. "God, I've missed you."

"I know," Marilyn assured her softly. If there was one thing she was good at, it was improvising.

She slipped one hesitant finger past the cotton panel of Lana's panties and found her hot and wet. Marilyn expected her to moan but instead Lana only whimpered, utterly overcome by sensation.

There was no sure way to proceed so Marilyn simply recalled how Oliver tortured her so exquisitely, sliding his strong fingers in and out of her, creating delicious friction, bringing her to the brink of ecstasy...

Feeling the space between her own legs flush with heat, Marilyn turned her palm up and carefully slipped two fingers inside Lana's moist wanting sex. She tried to recreate the slow pump that always seemed to be her undoing at the doctor's hands.

The velvety walls of Lana's sex clenched around her fingers and the reporter began to mumble incoherently, clenching the sheets in desperation.

Marilyn found herself oddly entranced with Lana's reactions, so different from Oliver's, somehow more delicate and graceful. Was this what she looked like in the throes of passion?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a new weight on the bed as the doctor slid behind her, taking her carefully by the hips. Oliver lifted the edge of her black negligee and pulled her back against him; she gasped as he entered her, his thick cock gliding into the slick space between her legs like a warm knife through butter.

Marilyn tried to straighten but he placed a palm on her back, keeping her on all fours.

"Don't stop," Oliver whispered in her ear, sending shivers down her spine with the heat of his breath. "Make her come."

He began to thrust his hips, slowly, filling her to the hilt and then withdrawing in a steady tortuous rhythm. She moaned his name and tried to focus her attention back on the squirming Lana, who was still clamped around her fingers and nearly delirious with pleasure.

Marilyn resumed pumping her fingers, in and out, matching the doctor's rhythm and speed. The effect was immediate; Lana let out an agonized mewl and threw her head back against the pillow.

"Good girl," Thredson growled, his breath heavy.

It was so hard to concentrate with the throbbing pleasure between her legs but Marilyn kept her pace, each thrust of her fingers driving Lana towards the breaking point. When the reporter's back began to arch Marilyn knew she was about to come, and with the pad of her thumb she started to rub gentle little circles around the swollen bundle of nerves at the apex of Lana's folds.

It all seemed to happen at once; Lana's breath escaped her in a shuddery little scream as Marilyn felt the muscles clenched around her fingers contracting with surprising strength. Before she could witness the reporter's undoing Marilyn felt Oliver reach around her waist and begin to stroke her own throbbing bud with a feathery-light touch that was very unlike his usual forceful methods.

She cried out as she tumbled unexpectedly over the edge, an explosion of pleasure bursting deep inside her as the doctor thrust over and over again, teasing her relentlessly between the legs.

"Marilyn," Oliver grunted, then groaned as his own orgasm arrived with the last few pumps of his lithe hips. She couldn't see him but she knew what his face looked like, his handsome features contorting in ecstasy, brows knitting in the way she had grown to love.

Instead she was staring at Lana, who lay still on the bed, utterly spent. Her chest heaved in an attempt to regain her stolen breath and just before she closed her eyes she locked gazes with Marilyn, her expression unreadable.

Oliver took a moment to compose himself before slipping from the bed to zip up his pants. With Lana slipping into unconsciousness Marilyn slumped to sitting position, wiping her fingers absently on the sheets.

"You," the doctor murmured, regarding Marilyn with a kind of odd pride, "were incredible."

She looked at the prone woman on the bed and felt a faint smile surface on her lips.

"Get the chain," Marilyn said breathlessly. "I have a feeling she won't be quite so nice when it wears off."


	4. Chapter 4

The florescent lights overhead flickered then buzzed to life. Lana stirred, shifted, moaned. The all-too familiar sound of metal clanking around her ankle made her shoot to a sitting position. She stared at the iron cuff in groggy disbelief as though she simply couldn't fathom its existence.

Soft footfalls down the steps drew her attention from the unforgiving chain that kept her bound to the bed.

"Wendy?" Lana called weakly, her voice dry and cracked around the edges.

Marilyn saw the sad sort of hope on the reporter's face drain as she moved into vision, her shock of blonde hair glaring in the harsh basement light and giving away that no, this was not the person she had been expecting.

"Oh, sweetheart," Marilyn murmured, "no."

Lana scrambled back against the headboard, the chain around her ankle clanking noisily.

"No..." The color had drained from her; she was sheet-white and sickly. "No, no, Wendy was here, she was..." Lana searched the room frantically. "WENDY!"

Marilyn settled gently on the edge of the bed and regarded her with wan sympathy.

"No, Lana," she said, careful, "that was me."

The reporter's eyes continued to dart around the dark basement, desperately seeking someone who simply wasn't there.

"Wendy?" she repeated, but this time her voice was small and frightened.

"Oh, sweetheart, I know," Marilyn comforted, beginning to stroke the damp hair around the reporter's pale face. "I know it's hard."

Lana seemed overcome with sadness; she tried to speak and couldn't, her words halted by the utter misery swallowing her whole.

"Oliver told me," Marilyn said in a tender hushed tone. "He said there's a down side to the drug. After all those good feelings, there's not much left in your brain but bad feelings. It's sort of like a... hangover."

Lana's lip trembled and Marilyn ran the pad of her thumb over her mouth, smiling.

"It'll pass," she assured her.

The other woman began to weep quietly.

Marilyn waited, patient, stroking Lana's dark stringy hair as she cried.

"You're not pregnant," she said flatly after a few moments.

Lana's tears began to ebb; she leaned away from Marilyn, glaring, her chest hitching with dry silent sobs.

The two women locked eyes, neither willing to back down.

"No," the reporter murmured at last, "but you are."

Marilyn stopped dead. The hand caressing Lana's locks fell still. Her stomach had dropped through the floor but she tried to remain calm.

"Why do you say that?" she asked stiffly.

Lana's quivering lips drew into a bitter, humorless smile.

"When I..." She struggled with the words as though the memories were slowly coming back to her, inch by inch. "When I felt... your breast. It was hard. Like mine were, when I was-"

She stopped abruptly and the smile faded.

"As long as we're comparing notes," Marilyn said, her mouth suddenly very dry, "Oliver told me you might be pregnant a few months ago. I haven't seen many women's hips beneath their dresses but yours was pretty smooth and flat last night to be expecting."

"Yeah, well." Lana grimaced a little as though there were a bad taste in her own mouth. "I did what I had to do."

Marilyn swallowed, but the action gave her no relief. She tried again and again but it was like swallowing sand.

"What did you do?" Marilyn wondered aloud, horrified, her hands absently twisting the bedsheets into tight little cords.

"You know what I did." Lana straightened like a warrior preparing for battle. "I couldn't bring a child into this world that was part of him, that monster-"

Marilyn felt her fingers tightening mercilessly around the sheets.

"Watch your mouth," she whispered. Another stiff moment of silence passed with them. "_What_ did you _do_?"

"You can't get your hands on much in an asylum," Lana said in a somewhat frightening monotone. Her eyes had a strange faraway look to them. "I found a coat hanger-"

"Stop," Marilyn demanded, her stomach turning. She stood up from the bed abruptly and placed a palm on the hard bulge of her small belly. Lana regarded her with a kind of strange interest.

"You're thinking about it," she taunted.

"No!" Marilyn took a step away from the bed as though it would somehow protect her from the reporter's words. "Stop it, just... stop." She looked at the other woman coldly. "You're just mad because you hate me, but I made you come."

The other woman said nothing.

"I _did_," Marilyn insisted, vaguely aware of the predatory way she was baring her teeth. "I made you come, and it was _good_, and now that you remember you _hate_ me for it."

"It's only natural," Lana said at last. Her face was almost sympathetic. "You know what he's capable of, and you're terrified, because now that's _inside_ you."

"You stupid bitch," Marilyn hissed, stumbling for the stairs before what she heard could poison her further. "You should rot down here for what you've done, you deserve it!"

Lana's eyes narrowed as Marilyn's fingers touched the lightswitch, prepared to plunge her back into darkness.

"Okay," she said evenly, "okay... but let's think about what _you_ deserve."

Marilyn did the only thing she could do. She flicked the switch and ran upstairs.

* * *

Oliver was shirtless in the kitchen cooking breakfast. She flung herself at him from behind, pressing her breasts against the smooth solid expanse of his back.

"Good morning," he said in a surprised tone, never taking his eyes from the french toast he was preparing.

"She's horrible," Marilyn whispered. She ran her hands over his firm chest and took solace in how strong he felt, how substantial, how hers.

"Who is?" Oliver pressed down on a piece of toast with his spatula; a quiet hissing sound filled the room. "Lana?"

"You know who I'm talking about," she snapped. "I checked on her like you asked and she said the most awful things. I hate her, Oliver."

"You seemed pretty fond of her last night," he said casually. A spark of anger ignited in her stomach; Marilyn shoved him away roughly and turned to the other corner of the kitchen to pout.

"I did that for you." She plopped in a chair at the dining table, her lower lip poking out sullenly. The soft hum of the pilot light stopped as the doctor clicked off the flame and turned to face her.

"You," Oliver murmured, his perfect mouth curling into a smile, "need to go back to bed."

Marilyn stared sulkily up at him, unmoving.

"I don't think you heard me," Thredson growled, and slipped towards her lightning-fast, scooping her from the dining room chair into his arms. He tossed her over his shoulder like a light bag of laundry. Against her will she let out a delighted scream.

"Oliver!" she cried, but he ignored her, carrying her wiggling body out of the kitchen and into the bedroom.

He threw her playfully onto the mattress of their king-size bed.

"My diagnosis," the doctor said, his voice a low husky thrill in her ears as he advanced on her, "is chronic nymphomania, only to be cured by excessive sexual activity."

"You're in quite a mood," Marilyn giggled. Oliver moved atop her in one fluid motion, his lithe body molding to hers as though it was meant to.

"I simply can't help myself." Thredson moved back slightly, taking her bare feet in his hands. She bit her lip as the doctor spread her legs, slowly, smiling as her soft secret parts were exposed to him beneath the hem of her black satin nightie.

"You're not distracting me," she said bravely.

Oliver's lips curled into a dark grin as if to say, 'oh no?'

He pressed a light, teasing kiss to the thin sensitive skin of her ankle. Marilyn swallowed and tried to pretend his touch didn't effect her.

"You're a dirty little girl," he whispered, and began moving his lips south, nipping and licking at the soft muscles on her calf.

The words caused a strange stir in her loins; Oliver had never taunted her before but for some reason his borderline insult made her feel as though she were doing something wrong, but in a deliciously bad way.

She had barely time to consider this when his mouth made its way to the tender flesh of her inner thigh. The doctor only had to graze his lips over her skin before Marilyn moaned aloud.

"Oliver," she begged helplessly, but he ignored her.

He trailed a slow path of kisses along her thigh, a place so near to her now throbbing sex, and she found herself nearly helpless in his hands. The heat and the wetness of his skilled slippery tongue were almost too much for her. She knew where he was heading and she couldn't wait.

"Oliver, please," Marilyn groaned, thrusting her hips upward. His strong fingers played absently at the crease where her knee met her calf.

"You want this," he mumbled, and though she couldn't see it she knew he was rock hard inside his soft Sunday morning pajama pants, saving it for the moment she was most wet and most wanting.

"Yes," she found herself saying, bucking her pelvis towards him again. Two strong hands circled her hips and held them down forcibly.

"You're a dirty girl," Oliver said again, and leaned towards her hot pulsing sex - but stopped several feet shy, licking his lips.

"God, Oliver, please," she sighed. Marilyn felt as though she were burning white-hot for him and could only communicate this with soft little scratches of her nails along his dark-furred forearms.

He exhaled lightly, his breath a scalding puff against the sensitive bundle of nerves between her legs.

"Tell me how bad you want it," he said, and his voice was tight with arousal; it became apparent to Marilyn he was struggling too, trying to maintain his own level of control.

"So badly," Marilyn whispered as she slowly lifted her hips towards his mouth. This time, he didn't pull away. "Oh Oliver, baby, I need you..." She raked her fingertips down the firm skin of his flat stomach and this time it was his turn to groan helplessly.

His mouth closed over the hot wet place between her legs, the tip of his tongue probing slowly along her slick folds.

Pleasure hit her in a sudden explosive burst. Marilyn whimpered, all thoughts of Lana and her cruel accusations miles away. The doctor had improved in skill since the last time he tried this as she lay bound and helpless in the basement; she could feel him tracing small delicate patterns across the areas that were most sensitive, driving her insistently towards the breaking point.

"Oh, baby," she mumbled, dragging her fingers through the thick dark hair of the head working feverishly between her thighs. "My baby..."

A low vibration thrummed through her throbbing sex as Oliver moaned softly into her.

She squirmed beneath his hands, whining, gripping his hair and tugging a little.

"I want you inside me," Marilyn said helplessly, suddenly slave to the way he was making her feel. Pregnancy seemed to make her entire body hum with sensitivity, and what's more Oliver seemed to be picking up on it - he was usually ravenous, but not quite this intense in his advances, nor nearly so vocal.

"Say it again," Oliver demanded, his words a soft puff of air against her privates.

"I want you," she whispered, and tilted his head from the space between her legs, forcing their eyes to meet, "inside me."

There was an animalistic growl as the doctor pounced on her, his lips capturing hers. She tasted herself on him - it was a strange foreign taste, one of slick sudden arousal, but she enjoyed it. He tugged his pajama bottoms down in a desperate one-handed motion.

Oliver's cock was as thick and rock hard as she had expected. It slipped inside her wet wanting sex with no resistance at all; the way he absolutely filled her to the hilt caused Marilyn to gasp breathlessly.

"Oh yes," she said, nearly incoherent.

He began to thrust his hips against hers, starting the hard and fast rhythm she knew he was most familiar with. On an impulse she took his lightly-stubbled face in her hands and made their eyes meet.

"Go slow," Marilyn whispered.

The request took him by surprise; he stopped altogether for a moment, his thick dark brows twisting together in a small frown.

She snatched the opportunity and began to move her hips in a leisurely rocking motion. The doctor's eyes drifted closed. After a short pause he followed her rhythm, pumping much slower now, drawing out each thrust carefully.

Marilyn found herself unable to stop the moans that fell from her lips as he filled her so completely and withdrew, again and again, a flower of pleasure blooming slowly between her legs, threatening to burst.

When Oliver opened his eyes the look in them was one she couldn't quite place; it was both distant and somehow warm. It was not a look she had seen before.

The doctor touched her face gently, running the pads of his fingers along the swell of her cheek.

"Marilyn," he began, and for some reason she pressed her lips against his in a passionate kiss, cutting off his words before he could say something she wasn't sure she was ready to hear.

Oliver whimpered as their tongues tangled once again and suddenly they were coming together, grasping for each other, bodies entwined in the way she suspected he simply couldn't get enough of.

When their orgasms subsided he pressed his forehead against hers, panting heavily. They remained this way in silence for a few moments, flesh on flesh, still connected at the hips, until Oliver rolled onto his side, breaking the connection at last.

"Still in a bad mood?" he asked, a little-boy smile tugging at his lips, clearly proud of himself.

"No," Marilyn admitted. She tugged the hem of the black satin nightie down over her hips and tried to ignore the warm pool of his seed between her legs.

The doctor touched the area just above her breasts with a quiet reverence.

"You really have such lovely skin," he whispered.

A cold chill rolled through her as she recalled the headlines plastered across every newspaper for months, the women found flayed and headless, those poor women.

How many times had she been that close to the same fate? It was something she simply couldn't consider. Not if she intended to keep what remained of her sanity.

Oliver pressed a tender kiss to her shoulder and leapt out of bed, tugging on his pajama pants.

"I should finish breakfast," he said brightly, unaware of the quiet storm brewing within her. "Then we'll see about Lana and her poor attitude."

Marilyn nodded because, really, there was nothing else she could do.

* * *

After french toast and eggs and ice cold orange juice they descended the stairs together, a picture-perfect couple spending Sunday morning visiting the women they kept prisoner in their basement.

Lana lay on her side, glaring into the flare of bright florescent light as they entered.

"Marilyn tells me you've been awfully rude to her," Oliver scolded, his still-playful tone masking something much darker underneath.

"Does she?" Lana asked in a monotone. Her weary brown eyes flicked to Marilyn, who lingered hesitantly near the workbench.

"Yes." He walked to the sink and began washing his hands. Even shirtless, barefoot, in his casual pajama pants, he moved with the precision and ease of a doctor. "Lana, I believe you know that your stay here rests solely - precariously, I might add - on your ability to stay in my good graces."

Lana stared at Marilyn. Neither spoke.

"I've turned a blind eye thus far to your frankly uncooperative nature but at a certain point, there must be consequences to your actions." The doctor dried his hands and reached towards the wall of shiny metal tools, trailing his fingertips over his collection.

"Do whatever you want," Lana said flatly. Her face was slack; she looked to Marilyn like someone who'd utterly given up. "I've been through it all, Oliver. Whatever you do to me next is just par for the course."

"Marilyn knows." He went on as though she hadn't said anything. "She knows there are _rules,_ and there are _punishments_ when those rules are broken."

"_Does _she?" Lana said again, and suddenly a humorless smile split her full lips.

That same cold chill began to spread through Marilyn's veins like icewater. Something was happening and it wasn't good.

"Yes," Oliver said thoughtfully, his back still to Lana as he gazed at his tools, considering each one in turn for the dark purpose in his brain. "She's-"

"She's pregnant, you know," Lana murmured.

The doctor's roving hand froze. Marilyn felt her guts plummet as though some trapdoor inside her had been tripped.

He turned to her, his brows knit in a worried, confused frown.

"Marilyn?" he said, and his voice was small.

"She hasn't told you," Lana continued, that strange dry smile still on her mouth, "because she wanted to get rid of it before you found out."

Oliver's face fell, his expression one of total heartbreak.

"No, baby, no, that's not true!" Marilyn scrambled for words though it felt like breakfast was at the back of her throat, ready to come up at any moment. She moved across the basement to take him in her arms but when she reached the workbench he seized her by the wrist, hard.

"You're not pregnant?" he demanded. He seemed to be struggling between both tears and fury.

"Well, I mean, no, yes... _that _part's true..." Her voice was shaky and she couldn't help but stammer through the fear that felt like it was overtaking her.

"How long?" The dark eyes that had held her in such reverence only minutes ago were now filled with disgust.

"I don't know, baby, a few months? Baby, please-" Marilyn reached for him with her free hand but the doctor shook her roughly by the wrist, keeping her at bay.

"You're just like her," Oliver accused bitterly. "You said you weren't but you _are, _you're just like the rest of them."

Her blood ran cold.

"No, I'm not," she whispered.

Lana watched from the bed, still smiling.

"You _are._" He shoved her away and stared, his shoulders heaving with emotion.

"I was going to tell you," Marilyn insisted. Her body felt on the verge of a full-blown anxiety attack but she tried desperately to maintain control. "I was, I just wanted - I was waiting for the right - where are you going?"

Oliver had turned on his heel and was climbing the stairs two at a time, leaving her in his wake.

"Oliver?" she called, her voice a high waver of utter panic, but he was already gone, and behind him the door's lock engaged in a solid final click.


	5. Chapter 5

Marilyn flung herself at the basement door, but it was too late.

She had heard the soft click and knew what it meant yet she couldn't stop herself from beating her fists helplessly against the barrier between her and the doctor.

"Oliver!" she screamed, pounding so hard she felt the bones in her hand buzzing from the impact. "Oliver, please, don't do this! She's lying!"

"He can't hear you," Lana said dully from her prone position on the bed. "The walls are soundproof."

Marilyn turned from the door at once and bolted across the room, launching herself onto the mattress and on top of the shackled woman who lay there. Fury burned in the pit of her stomach like a glowing red coal; it seemed the only thing to do was to put her hands around Lana's neck and squeeze, and squeeze, and _squeeze_.

"You stupid cunt," she hissed, shaking her a little to emphasize her words. "Do you have any idea - _any_ idea - what you've done?"

Lana's lips pulled back from her teeth in a half-smile as she clawed at the hands around her throat.

"Guess... you don't get... to play house... anymore," she managed.

Marilyn heard someone scream in frustration and she supposed it was herself. She tightened her grip around Lana's neck for only a moment before thrusting her away, striking the other woman's head hard against the bed's headboard.

Lana cried out and crumpled to the sheets as Marilyn got shakily to her feet. Much as she wanted to choke the very life out of this woman she knew Oliver would never forgive her if he came downstairs and found Lana dead.

And now? Would he forgive her for the lies Lana had told?

She began to pace the length of the basement like a restless caged animal.

It was true she was frightened. It was true that the prospect of bearing Bloody Face's child was something she could hardly fathom. It was true she'd considered her options.

It was _not_ true, what Lana had said.

As monumentally twisted as the whole situation was, Marilyn could no longer deny that part of her actually wanted to have this baby, to give it the life Oliver had been so cruelly denied. The doctor himself was a picture-perfect example of why children needed good mothers. She had long scoffed at the idea of settling down, getting married, having babies, but something... something was different now.

_She_ was different now.

And if only she could tell Oliver. If only he would listen, hear her actually say the words... she was sure he would forgive her.

There was the sound of quiet, breathless laughter from the bed. Marilyn turned and glared as Lana drew to a sitting position, rubbing the back of her head.

"I'm doing you a favor," she said, giggling almost hysterically.

"A _favor_?" Marilyn murmured incredulously. She took a step towards the bed, hands flexing as if to take Lana by the throat again, then thought better of it and backed away. "How on _earth_ or in _hell_ do you think you're doing me a god damned _favor_? He's going to kill me, most likely, and then you'll be all that's left and he'll kill you too."

"Exactly." Lana's giggles began to subside but there was still a strange faraway look to her eyes; Marilyn began to wonder if the drug she'd forced down her throat had affected her in some deep, dark way, or if perhaps the reporter was finally succumbing to the madness of her fate.

"You think you can just keep playing the good little wife and have his baby and everything will just be fine?" Lana asked in her dry cracked voice. "The man's a murderer, you stupid girl, he's not going to change. He _can't_."

"He could." Marilyn's eyes flicked involuntarily to the wall of shiny metal tools.

"He promised me too," Lana went on. "When I showed him I was pregnant, he promised he'd be different, he'd be a good man. I knew then, you should know now. He can't change."

"He _did_," Marilyn insisted. "I'm still here!" She gestured wildly to her body. "I've still got my skin! I'm _special_! I-"

"You're locked in the basement," Lana said flatly, "with me."

The crush of reality hit her like a ton of bricks. Suddenly it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room and her chest could only hitch with useless effort. Marilyn slid slowly to the cool tiled floor as all the strength seeped out of her legs.

Lana regarded her with cold eyes. After a moment she moved onto her side, turning her back to Marilyn. The ankle restraint clanked loudly in the silence.

"You have to face the truth eventually," she said dully. "He's a maniac. Not a lover, not a father. A monster."

"I can't breathe," Marilyn gasped, choking on the lump in her throat.

Another pause passed between them.

"He killed Wendy, you know," Lana said at last.

Marilyn swallowed desperately and stared at Lana's back.

"My Wendy. He went to our home and he murdered her. And when I ended up here..." Her shoulders shuddered. "...she was in the basement, too."

Hot tears slid down Marilyn's cheeks, but she couldn't be sure who she was crying for.

She listened for Lana to say more but there was no more. As the light began to fall outside she drew her knees up under her chin and, once again, she waited.

* * *

She had slipped into a fitful sleep when she was roused by two strong hands lifting her from the cold tile floor. Marilyn began to struggle groggily, unable to see her attacker in the utter blackness of the basement at nighttime.

"Shhh, no, it's all right," she heard a deep voice whisper, and its familiarity both comforted and alarmed her in the same moment.

"Oliver," she mumbled, pushing at him weakly, because how could she tell? How could be sure exactly what he was here for? Perhaps it was truly time to end this sick twisted game, for her to be found headless and skinless in an open field, the subject of news headlines for the next few months until some other tragedy struck and she was forgotten forever.

"It's me, it's just me, you're all right." The doctor held her close to his chest, cradling her slim body against his like something precious. He turned and began to ascend the steps out of the basement.

"It's not true," Marilyn said helplessly, feeling tears rise hot in the back of her throat. She was too tired to fight; the day and night spent on the cold hard floor had left her muscles aching. "I'm not like her, I'm not like _them_, please don't hurt me..."

Oliver quietly closed the door behind them and carried her through the darkened den towards their bedroom.

"I told you before," he murmured, sounding somewhat disappointed. "Your baby would never hurt you. You know that."

He laid her down gently on the bed and drew the sheets up to her waist. In the pale moonlight Marilyn could see her face glinting off the lenses of his black-rimmed glasses. She looked small and frightened.

"You left me in the basement," she said, and before she knew it she was crying, pathetic little sobs catching in her throat. The doctor smoothed the hair back from her forehead tenderly.

"I know. I'm sorry. Sometimes I can't... I can't control myself." He let her cry for a few moments, then began to unbutton his starched white dress shirt. She watched, hiccupping through her tears, as Oliver undressed fully, shedding his layers until he was stark naked. He reached for her and gently tugged the black silk nightie over her head, leaving her as nude as he was; tossing the negligee aside, the doctor slipped into bed with her, curling his body around Marilyn's like a child.

As soon as her warm flesh met his Oliver sighed softly.

"I'm sorry," he said again. One long-fingered hand crept down to the hard little bulge of her belly and rubbed soothing circles over the skin there. "I should've known. I suppose I did, in a way."

Marilyn's sobs began to ebb as his touch calmed her, comforted her. He was not going to kill her, once again. She was back in his good graces, and it was a good thing.

"I couldn't allow myself to believe it, you see," he went on thoughtfully, leaning his nose into the blonde tangle of her hair. "Lana, as I expected, did the unthinkable to our unborn baby. What she did was worse than the injustices I suffered as a child, because our child had a father who would've loved him unconditionally. But it was..." Here his voice grew thick; he took a moment to compose himself before going on. "...a cosmic joke for that child to end up inside yet another woman devoid of any motherly love whatsoever."

Oliver took her gently by the chin and turned her face towards his, wiping away the tears cooling on her cheeks.

"But you," he said softly, "you're not like her. I know you're not."

He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead and Marilyn felt the reliable hardness of his rising erection against her thigh.

"You'll love our child." Oliver's whisper was so soft she may have missed it had she not been listening closely. "Right? You'll love our child, won't you? The way you love me?"

Marilyn thought for a moment. She closed her eyes and savored the way his palm felt moving slowly across the curve of her full stomach.

"You know I will," she said at last. The doctor made a small sound of relief in her ear.

"Mommy," he moaned quietly, and his hand began to roam further south, his fingertips trailing along the gentle dips of her hipbones. Oliver began to rock his own hips slowly against the warm flesh of her thigh.

He lowered his mouth to the swell of her breast and closed his mouth over one pebbly nipple, teasing it delicately with the tip of his tongue.

"Your milk will come in soon," he mumbled against her skin, and the very thought made him grind his stiff member harder on her leg. She sighed as the warm heat of his mouth on her breast urged a slow throb into her already damp sex.

Briefly Marilyn wondered if she was actually going along with this madness, if she was truly going to oblige this man whose issues with his mother and touch ran so deep he literally skinned women to feel close to them. She wondered if he was going to try to breastfeed from her. She supposed he might.

But what choice did she have? She was in so deep now there was no escaping the doctor, and this was a fact. They were so entangled that she would never be capable of pulling herself free from him; he would follow her to the ends of the earth if she left, and his punishment when he found her would be swift and severe. And he _would_ find her.

And so - knowing there was little room in her cage and she must not take it for granted - Marilyn raked her nails through the doctor's thick dark hair, reveling in the way her fingers broke apart its impeccable style, just as she had the first night he appeared in the doorway of her bedroom.

Oliver growled deep in his throat and moved atop her, spreading her legs expertly with a quick move of his knee. Before entering her he stopped and smiled a strange sort of smile.

"You were right all along," he murmured, placing the tips of his fingers gently at the base of her throat. "It's too dangerous to have her here. I have to protect my family."

Marilyn's brows furrowed into a frown but she barely had time to consider his words before he moved his hips forward, burying his throbbing length deep inside her warm wet center. She whimpered and clutched at the firm skin of his back as Oliver began to rock slowly against her in the rhythm she'd taught him.

"Tomorrow," he said through clenched teeth, trying to pace himself, "tomorrow we'll do what we should've done a long time ago."

A spark went off inside her brain.

"Lana?" she asked breathlessly. Her hands crept to his bare chest and began inching through the dark wiry hair there.

Oliver groaned, burying his face in the curve of her neck.

"We'll take care of her," he whispered, and before they knew it they were tumbling over the edge of ecstasy together, clutching at each other like lovers drowning, sealing Lana's fate even as she slept fitfully in the basement, unaware of the choice they had made.


	6. Chapter 6

She spent the next morning in the throes of morning sickness. The doctor held her hair as she emptied her stomach into the toilet over and over again; he rubbed soothing circles over her back and whispered words of comfort in her ear. He told her she was strong, she was special. He was proud of her.

Marilyn couldn't be sure if it was the pregnancy alone causing the churning feeling in her guts. Part of her felt it was the choice they had made the night before. Lana's days were numbered, this was a fact, and though she had played the part of willing participant that first evening in the basement, Marilyn was now faced with the utter horror of taking another person's life.

There would be no going back after that. It would be the final nail in the coffin Oliver had built for her.

She gagged and heaved again but nothing came up. Marilyn felt two hot tears slide down her cheeks as the doctor pressed a gentle kiss against her bare shoulder.

"It will pass," he murmured, and she had that familiar fleeting feeling that he could read her mind. "This reaction, while unpleasant, is a sign that our baby is healthy and growing." Oliver took her free hand that wasn't gripping the toilet in his and squeezed it affectionately.

She gave him a weak smile and turned her head to spit.

His dark eyes regarded her for a moment, full of concern. After a brief pause they lit up.

"Ginger root," he said suddenly.

Marilyn heaved again, then looked back to him confusedly when it appeared to be another false alarm.

"What?" she mumbled. Her mouth tasted like bitter acrid sick and she just wanted to go back to bed without feeling like her stomach was in the back of her throat.

"Ginger root is a natural cure for nausea and vomiting," Oliver explained as he got to his feet. "I could go get some. It wouldn't take any time at all, and you'd feel so much better." He moved towards the door, then frowned and turned back. "Will you be all right alone? Half an hour, or less?"

She could see as plain as the glasses on his face that he was trying to remain calm, to treat her with the same composed manner he gave his patients, but the sight of her on her knees over the toilet gagging on her own sick seemed to have shaken him.

It made her heart twist painfully in her chest to realize that, in his own psychotic way, he truly did care about her. And now, staring at the worried little crease between his thick brows, she knew she cared about him too.

In her own psychotic way.

"I'll be fine, baby," she said gently. The word made him brighten a little and he gave her a brisk nod, edging out of the bathroom.

"It won't take any time at all," he reassured her again, and slipped away into the world outside.

Marilyn waited until she heard the low hum of his car's engine purring to life before pulling herself to her feet by the corner of the bathroom sink.

She rinsed her mouth out with running water from the tap. She fetched Oliver's plush brown bathrobe, wrapping it around herself to shut out the late autumn chill.

Her heartbeat was loud and thick in her ears as she moved through the house like a dazed sleepwalker and descended the stairs into the basement.

Lana was already awake. When the lights flickered on Marilyn saw her sitting cross-legged on the bed, waiting.

"You've been ill," Lana noted drily.

"Don't try to distract me," Marilyn said, settling gingerly on the bottom step. She knew better than to sit with Lana on the bed; the defiant strength had returned to the reporter's face after the drug's hangover wore off.

"Just an observation. It's what I do." She squinted and tilted her head. "Where is he? Why are you here alone?"

"He left to get me medicine." Marilyn rubbed her palm over the bulge of her belly. It was growing by the day; perhaps it was good the doctor had discovered her secret when he had. Hiding it would have become impossible.

"Oh," Lana said, and it came out as a barking little laugh. "So all's well in paradise again, I suppose? _That _certainly didn't take long."

Marilyn felt a small smile tug at the corners of her mouth.

"I think he actually loves me," she murmured.

Lana shook her head, chuckling.

"I knew it the moment I saw you," she said, her tone incredulous. "You came walking up to me in that trampy little red dress and I thought to myself, 'She's just a child playing grown-up.'"

"You don't know anything about me," Marilyn whispered.

"And when you said his name? I knew then, too. My instincts are never wrong." Lana tapped her forehead with a slender finger. "It's what makes me a damn good reporter."

"Yeah, sure," Marilyn shot back, now laughing her own derisive laugh. "Could you send me clippings of your recent top stories? Oh, that's right, you don't _have _any because you were strapped to a chair in an asylum getting your brain zapped by 10,000 volts of electricity."

This gave Lana pause; her lips curled back from her teeth in a sneer.

"My first thought was maybe you were just dating him. Maybe you had no idea, or had just found out and didn't know what to do. That you were coming to me for advice. I'm sure the bastard told you all about me."

Marilyn narrowed her eyes and said nothing.

"But then you said you _knew, _you fucking _smiled _at me_._ And do you know what I thought?"

The two women stared each other down. When Marilyn remained silent Lana went on.

"I thought, 'Jesus Christ, he's found someone just stupid enough to be in on this with him.' And I was right."

"You can insult me all you want, Lana." Marilyn adjusted the oversized bathrobe around her neck, pulling the collar tight under her chin. "I'm here to figure out how we're going to get rid of you in a quick, easy way. Because as stupid as you think I am, that's all you are to me right now. You're a mess I'm trying to determine how to clean up."

The reporter seemed unfazed. She stared at Marilyn with a furrowed brow as though she were dissecting her mentally.

"You're really going to do it," she wondered aloud.

"I have," Marilyn murmured, palm moving slowly over her rounded stomach, "to protect my family."

Lana smiled as though this was what she'd expected.

"I'll give it to you," she said, sounding almost impressed. "You two definitely deserve each other."

Marilyn scowled. She ran her fingers through her hair and tried to regain control of the conversation.

"As much as I'd like to see it happen, I won't let Oliver skin you. We can't risk another body popping up with Kit Walker taking the blame for Bloody Face—"

"You're unbelievable!" Lana uncrossed her legs, the iron chain clanking loudly as she moved. "You don't even _care _that an innocent man is suffering because that monster you let _fuck_ you framed him?"

"—and I don't particularly like the threat a gunshot would bring, regardless of whether these walls are soundproof." Marilyn leaned her head towards Lana and smiled a dry strange smile at her captive. "What do you think? Just a quiet little drug overdose? Or would you prefer to go out fighting, with my hands wrapped around your throat?"

"How many times am I going to discuss the options for my impending death in this godforsaken basement?" Lana snapped irritably.

"As many as it takes until you're no longer my problem." Marilyn suddenly felt as though she may get sick again; she wondered if she could sneak in a smoke before Oliver returned home. She'd been abstaining because of the pregnancy but the relief it offered seemed worth the risk at the moment.

She got to her feet and began climbing the stairs.

"You consider those options, Lana," Marilyn called over her shoulder. "The time will come very soon when you won't have a choice."

* * *

Ultimately she was glad she hadn't decided to pick up the elegant silver case full of joints; the doctor arrived only ten minutes after Marilyn left the basement.

He went straight to the kitchen and made her a cup of tea from a strange-smelling powdery substance he claimed was made from ginger root. He promised it would soothe her upset stomach and, after a few slow tentative sips, she found that it did.

Encouraged by this development, Oliver made grilled cheese for lunch.

With her belly full and the food staying down for a change, he carried her into the bedroom for an afternoon nap.

"I'm not tired," Marilyn said as he laid her gently onto the cool clean sheets.

"You will be." He adjusted her pillow and settled on his knees beside the bed.

"But I feel better," she insisted.

"You'll feel better," Oliver pressed, "after you take your nap." Without missing a beat he slipped one long-fingered hand beneath the hem of her black satin nightie and began stroking the soft folds between her legs.

She sucked in her breath sharply, taken off guard.

"How am I supposed to sleep when you're being naughty?" Marilyn asked him, her lips twitching into a little smile.

Oliver returned the smile and continued his tender assault. His touch was feathery-light; it brought the blood into her cheeks almost at once, the pleasure turning her limbs to jelly.

But _was _it the pleasure making her feel like she was drifting away?

She tried to ground herself, to focus on the fingertips caressing her in their sweetly sinful way, but it was like trying to grip grains of sand. Marilyn's smile gave way to a worried frown as the room began to grow dark.

The last thing she saw was the doctor lowering his mouth to suckle at her breast through the black satin of her negligee and then she was gone, lost to sleep like an unmoored ship on a black sea.

* * *

She dreamt.

Faces and voices bled together. First her mother was calling her name, then it was Lana, then it was a baby crying.

A chain rattling. Little hands reaching for her, begging be picked up, crying "Mommy, mommy, mommy…"

The little hands became big ones. They grasped her by the hips, caressed her breasts. The word kept echoing through her brain.

Mommy.

Lana laughed at her somewhere in the dark. She spun and ran but there was nowhere to go, she was back in the basement with the iron chain around her leg and far away her baby was squalling, weeping for its mother but she couldn't get out of the basement, she was trapped, trapped, and god how her breasts ached…

* * *

Marilyn's eyes drifted slowly open. The bedroom was dark.

How long had she been asleep? It was only 11am when the doctor had put her to bed—

The doctor. Where was the doctor?

She tried to sit up and found that her head felt full of slow sloshing liquid. Marilyn blinked heavily once, twice, hoping the fog would clear but it held fast.

Pulling herself to a standing position by way of the headboard, she stood on watery legs for a moment to catch her footing. This strange dazed feeling, it wasn't the pregnancy, she was certain. A terrible thought hit her, sending shockwaves through the goop in her brain.

Had he drugged her? Had there been more in that tea than ginger root?

The basement.

She braced herself against the wall and stumbled along it like a drunk after last call, palms pressed flat, feeling her way out of the bedroom. It was a slow process but the only way she could prevent her half-numb feet from giving out beneath her.

There was light coming from beneath the door at the foot of the stairs.

Marilyn sat on the top step and bumped slowly down each one, bouncing on her rump like a child until she reached the bottom. It seemed an impossible prospect to get to her feet again but she did it, slowly, leaning against the heavy soundproof door for support. She took the doorknob and turned it, taking extra care to be so very quiet; he was in there, she _knew _he was.

She pushed the door open, her breath caught in her throat.

Oliver knelt over Lana on the bed, his knees planted firmly on either side of her waist. He wore his standard black pants and just a sleeveless white shirt – his go-to outfit when he was in one of his more violent moods. It left him free to move easily, strike faster.

In one hand gleamed a scalpel.

And there was something on his head.

"Oliver?" Marilyn whispered.

He turned like a guilty child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But he wasn't a child, he wasn't even a man, he was a _monster _with a strange leathery face, the mouth torn at the corners, jagged teeth sticking out at odd angles, black-red holes with ragged edges from which his dark eyes peered out, the eyes that softened when she called him baby and drifted closed when they made love.

Lana was screaming. Or was it Marilyn screaming? All she could hear was screaming.

Then the blackness came to claim her again and that was good because the screaming stopped and the monster went away and in the dark drifting world of the unconscious she was safe from him, if only for a moment.


	7. Chapter 7

It was a strange sort of deja vu to realize that her eyelids felt too heavy to lift, her limbs like they were encased in cement. When Marilyn's vision finally focused the doctor came into view and though his normal handsome face had returned all she could see was that mask of terrible stinking flesh.

"Marilyn," he whispered, his thick dark brows twisted with concern. He leaned close to her and began to stroke her forehead; had she been able to move, she would have recoiled, but he couldn't know that.

Her eyes flicked to the IV in the crease of her arm.

"I know, I know," Oliver murmured, the touch of his fingers on her skin ever so gentle, "you had an incident, you're all right now but you need to remain calm. For the baby."

The doctor's face was uncharacteristically pale. There were the beginnings of dark circles forming under his eyes.

"You were never meant to see that." His face twisted with emotion as he fought back tears. "You should've never..." Oliver looked away for a moment, then met her gaze again, distraught. "You were supposed to be asleep! You should've stayed in bed!"

She swallowed. Her throat felt dry like sandpaper.

He got to his feet and paced the room restlessly, dragging a hand through his dark hair.

"You should've-" Oliver stopped and turned back to the bed. He looked utterly broken. "I never wanted you to see me that way."

Marilyn flexed her fingers weakly. Spotting the movement, he crossed back to her like a sleek jungle cat on the prowl.

He checked the levels on her IV and began to adjust it when she shook her head almost imperceptibly.

"Don't," Marilyn whispered through numb lips. The doctor's hand froze, hovering over the bag of clonodine on the IV stand.

"You'll only upset yourself," he said softly.

She shook her head again, harder this time.

"Want... to talk... to you," she managed.

Oliver looked distressed; he glanced back and forth between the sedative and Marilyn before letting out a short little breath of frustration and adjusting the dosage lower.

She didn't feel the effect at first, but after a few minutes she tried flexing her fingers again and found herself gaining more strength. The doctor watched from the edge of the bed, worried.

Finally she lifted a hand and gripped his dark-furred forearm, tugging him lightly to indicate she wanted to sit up. Oliver moved to help her at once. Her head still woozy and full of cotton, Marilyn settled back against the headboard with his assistance and took a moment to steady her breathing.

After a long pause, she had decided what she would do, and she hoped it was good enough.

"You've been a very bad boy, Oliver," she whispered at last.

Shock registered on the doctor's face like he had been slapped.

"I-" he began, but she held up two weak fingers to stop him.

"You've been bad, and you know it," Marilyn went on. She paused briefly. "Is Lana dead?"

"N-no," he stammered, and suddenly he seemed like a small child trapped in the body of a powerful, dangerous man; his shoulders slumped, his dark eyes were wide in his pale face. "She's... she's still downstairs, I didn't have a chance to-"

"Good," she interrupted. Marilyn smoothed the sheets over her lap and didn't speak for another moment. She felt Oliver shifting uncomfortably beside her. When she thought he had suffered long enough she took him tenderly by the chin and tilted his face up towards hers.

"Where did the mask come from, Oliver?" she asked gently.

Oliver said nothing; he bit his lip and lowered his eyes. His whole energy had changed. For once, the doctor was not certain he was the one in charge, and it had reverted him to his troubled childhood, just as Marilyn knew it would.

"Burn it," she demanded, releasing his face.

He nodded quickly.

"And for the moment, leave Lana where she is. She's not going anywhere." Marilyn studied his expression. Her only hope had been that he hadn't gone entirely over the edge of insanity, that he could still be molded and shaped by her newly maternal hands, and it seemed her prayer had been answered. With Oliver staring at her like a wounded little boy, the image of him masked by the flesh of murdered women was starting to fade.

But not entirely.

"Make me something to eat," she said softly, hoping he'd hear the quiet lilt of disappointment in her voice. "When I'm feeling stronger I'll decide your punishment."

He looked up at her, alarmed.

"Punishment?" Oliver echoed incredulously. He almost sounded as though he'd nearly had enough of this; she wondered if perhaps she had been foolish to think he could be controlled after all.

Marilyn looked at him with what she felt must be the unconditional love he'd always craved. Even after seeing him in the basement, her lover with a monster's face, she found she couldn't imagine leaving him alone with the demons in his head, the voices that called him to do the most unspeakable things.

This man was someone she needed to protect, and someone the world needed protection from.

"Yes, Oliver," she said at last. "What kind of mommy would I be if I didn't discipline baby when he misbehaved?"

That was it. Suddenly everything clicked into place and Oliver's face crumbled; he reached for her, begging silently for her touch, but Marilyn held him at bay with a firm hand.

"Mommy," he mumbled brokenly, trying to lean into the curve of her neck.

"You can go now, Oliver," she told him, her tone indicating that the conversation was over. He searched her face for forgiveness but she didn't relent. After a moment he stood, his head hanging like a scolded child, and left the bedroom without another word.

* * *

After she'd eaten and the sedative had fully worn off, Marilyn called Oliver back into the bedroom.

"Are you ready for your punishment?" she asked when he slunk into view, shoulders slumped.

A long moment passed between them before he raised his eyes to hers and gave a weak little nod.

She got to her feet, pulling the blankets and sheets with her. She stripped the bed and tossed the bundle into the corner of the room. With the mattress bare except for the fitted sheet, Marilyn turned back to the doctor and pointed at the bed.

"Take off your shirt," she demanded firmly, "and lie down."

Oliver's brow furrowed, but only slightly; he began to undo the many small white buttons down his chest and moved towards the bed. Confusion and curiosity played across his handsome features as he let the pressed dress shirt flutter to the floor.

"Good." Marilyn rewarded him with a brisk nod. "The undershirt, too."

A devious gleam passed over his eyes as though the whole idea was becoming more and more intriguing to him, but she didn't allow him the satisfaction of knowing what was to come. She forced her face to remain blank.

He smiled a little and pulled the sleeveless undershirt over his head, exposing his firm bare chest and stomach. She wanted to run her fingers through the dark hair that disappeared down past the buckle of his belt, it was so tempting to give in to him so soon, but he was being punished and it would do no good to end the game so quickly.

She had to know whether he was too far gone to save. If it was too late to keep this sharp-fanged cobra at bay, or if she still had some snake-charmer in her yet.

"Lie down," Marilyn repeated in a harsher, sterner tone.

Oliver crawled onto the bed, still intrigued but now mildly reproached. There was worry behind his dark eyes as though he was afraid she might strike him like the ones who ruled supreme over his terrible childhood, but pain was not what she had in mind. Not tonight.

"On your back." He obeyed wordlessly. She waited until he'd situated himself before turning to the bedside table and retrieving two of Oliver's black neckties she'd chosen earlier.

She joined him on the bed and straddled his hips; the doctor made a quiet noise of arousal, reaching for her, but Marilyn took one dark-furred hand and stretched his arm towards the bedpost. Oliver watched in silent wonder as she bound first one wrist to the headboard with his own tie, then the other.

When she was finished he lay helpless on the bed, vulnerable, his arms spread apart like a bird about to take flight. She smiled down at him and began to drag her fingers slowly through the wiry hair of his broad, firm chest. He growled deep in his throat, trying to flex his arms to reach for her again, but her knots held tight and he could do little more than strain his wrists against the bonds.

"This is what's going to happen," Marilyn said softly, her fingertips playing lightly across his hardening nipples. "I'm going to give you your punishment, and you're going to take it like a good boy, right?"

Oliver nodded again. He seemed at a loss for words but he was baring his teeth in that unconscious predatory way of his.

"Good." She leaned towards him until their lips nearly touched and smiled. "Here's your punishment: you're not allowed to come until I tell you that you can. And If you come before I say so, well... your punishment will continue."

Marilyn carefully took the dark-rimmed glasses from his face and set them on the nightstand. She turned back to him. He licked his lips anxiously.

"Let's begin," she whispered, and began trailing soft little kisses up his chest. She felt the doctor tense beneath her, his arms straining against the restraints again, but it was useless; the knots were simply too tight.

"Marilyn," he murmured, and she ignored him.

Her lips made their way up to the curve of his neck. She sucked gently on the sensitive area that she knew made him weak in the knees; the doctor groaned, and she felt his erection rising hard and reliable beneath her.

"You've been so bad," Marilyn said quietly, her breath hot against his skin. "Oliver, how am I supposed to trust you with our child when you're being so bad?"

"I'll be better," he responded at once, jerking his hips on hers. "I can be a good man, a good father, I promise..."

She gave the place where his shoulder met his neck a little bite and the doctor moaned loudly.

"A family is built on trust," she instructed firmly. Her fingertips returned to his nipples, now hard little pebbles beneath her touch, and moved in small teasing circles. Oliver was squirming restlessly beneath her. "If I can't trust you..." His dark eyes searched her face desperately before rolling back in his head as she caressed his throat with the tip of her tongue.

"You can trust me," he managed. He bucked his growing erection up towards the comfort of her hips again but Marilyn pulled back, allowing him no friction. The doctor growled in frustration.

"No more Bloody Face." She leaned back to see the effect the actual words had had on him. Oliver was frozen, surprised; she had never called him this before, and she doubted many people had. Anyone left alive, that is.

"No more," he agreed, but he looked pensive.

"Never. I will not have your child and one day discover you in the basement, some other woman's face over yours, wondering who's going to show up decapitated in a field when we have a perfectly good alibi secured in Briarcliff. Understood?" It was hard to believe this was the boundary she was setting with him, but if Marilyn expected to have any sort of life with the man who'd impregnated her, it was one that was mandatory.

And yet, Oliver hesitated.

"Understood?" she repeated, and brushed her hips ever so lightly over the bulge that strained at his black dress pants.

"God, yes," he moaned. Marilyn smiled.

"Good boy." She leaned towards him and rewarded his obedience with a long, deep kiss. The doctor whimpered softly into her mouth, his tongue tangling desperately with hers. Almost as soon as she'd began, Marilyn withdrew. Oliver watched her with dismay, sexual frustration painted on his face like grease paint.

"We're not done here," she told him sternly.

"Marilyn," he growled. His lean, sinewy arms strained again at the restraints to no avail.

She shifted back on her haunches and regarded him with a small smile on her lips, resting her weight lightly on his swollen crotch.

"If you won't listen to Mommy," Marilyn purred, beginning to slowly grind her hips against his, "how is Mommy ever supposed to trust you?"

Oliver grunted and met her thrusts eagerly. The dreamy look that overtook him during the throes of lovemaking spread over his handsome features, but she once again she stopped short.

"God damn it," he huffed, brows meeting in an angry knot.

"Baby needs to take his punishment like a good boy." She ran her fingers through the dark hair across his chest, then met his gaze with hers, serious. "Because if you're a good boy... Mommy promises to stay."

Oliver froze again, his eyes widening. The realization of what she'd said had apparently put his raging libido on hold for the moment.

"You'll stay?" he whispered, not for the first time sounding like a lost little boy. Her breasts ached in response.

"I'll stay," Marilyn said gently. She began to slowly unzip his pants, maintaining eye contact with the stone-still doctor as his straining erection finally burst free. He licked his lips and held back a groan when she wrapped her hand around him. "I'll stay, because soon I'll have two babies to take care of, right?"

"Oh, Mommy," Oliver whimpered.

Marilyn positioned his throbbing cock beneath her and gave him a tender smile, a loving smile, a mother's smile.

"That's a good boy." She sank down onto him, enveloping his thick length inside her hot wet sex at last.

Oliver let out a husky moan and pulled hard at his bonds. His eyes screwed shut as she began to ride him slowly; he was clearly struggling to maintain composure, to play along with the game she'd started. To be a good boy.

"No more Bloody Face," she said again, her voice low with lust now, the place between her legs ablaze with pleasure. Marilyn tangled her fingers in his chest hair and picked up speed.

"No more Bloody Face," Oliver repeated breathlessly, his brow furrowing. She was pleased to see he was concentrating hard on not coming before he was allowed to, but the urge to prolong his punishment ebbed with each thrust of her hips.

Marilyn leaned forward and brushed her nipples lightly against his bare chest. He grunted softly, his eyes still squeezed closed.

She had her answer, she supposed. And he was behaving. It was really all she could hope for.

Tilting her head towards his, Marilyn placed a tender kiss on the doctor's parted lips.

"Good baby," she murmured, and as she approached climax she began jerking her hips in the reliable rhythm she knew would drive him over the edge.

"Come for Mommy," Marilyn whispered against his mouth. Oliver's face went slack and he made a sound deep in his throat; the sound turned into something of a strangled moan as she felt the telltale pulsing of his orgasm between her thighs. A few more thrusts and soon she was coming too, her legs quivering as the pleasure bloomed and then burst into flame, leaving her spent and breathless.

She remained on top of the panting doctor for a few moments more before reaching for his wrists to undo the makeshift restraints. His black neckties were now stretched and warped, but she doubted it would matter much to him.

Oliver's chest heaved as he struggled to regain his lost breath but his eyes were soft as they looked her over.

"I'm sorry, Mommy," he said quietly.

She lowered his arms, rubbing the red marks on his wrists with the pad of her thumbs.

"I know, baby." Marilyn pressed a kiss to each of his palms, one at a time. "We should rest now. We've got a big day tomorrow."

He cocked his head, not understanding. With a contented sigh, she climbed off of him and rolled onto her back. Marilyn patted the space above her breasts and the doctor crawled over, eagerly leaning into her like an overgrown child.

She began to stroke his slightly damp hair, a faint smile playing on her lips.

"Tomorrow, we're going to dispose of the trash in the basement."


	8. Chapter 8

The next night she awoke, half in a daze, to find the doctor sucking painfully hard at her still-dry breast. Her milk had not come in yet but that had not stopped him.

Oliver's lips were closed tight over her nipple, his tongue playing lightly across her oversensitive skin. The pressure was both sweet and unbearable. Marilyn felt the slow throb begin between her legs even before she could bring the room into focus.

"Baby," she mumbled, groping carefully for his head so she could weave her fingers through his thick dark hair.

He made a low noise of appreciation into her breast and went on nursing.

Marilyn tangled her fingers deeper and tugged at him insistently.

"Baby, stop," she elaborated. Her nerve endings felt overloaded and she tried to arch away from his wet insistent mouth.

"Mommy," Oliver murmured, and it was clear he was in one of his darker places; his catlike body thrummed with predatory energy as he bucked his hips slowly against her thigh.

A weak whimper escaped her.

"Oliver, please." Her fingers searched his face until she felt the warm softness of his lips against her skin. She began to carefully stroke the doctor's handsome features in supplication. "Please, baby, you have to stop."

He mumbled something that sounded like "how?" and ran his strong heated palms down over the gentle curve of her slowly growing belly.

"Oh, sweet baby," Marilyn purred, the feelings of pain and pleasure twisting together in a sinful surge. "Give mommy a break, good boy." A single warm tear slipped from the corner of her eye but she didn't know what it meant, seeing as the heat of his mouth had made her wet and wanting, so she wiped it away frantically before he could notice.

Oliver let loose a frustrated growl and diverted his attention towards her neck, his tongue flicking against the places he knew made her weak in the knees.

The near-unbearable intensity finally ebbed a little as he was focused away from her hypsersensitive breasts. Marilyn sighed softly in relief.

"You're driving me crazy," the doctor said huskily into the curve of her neck.

She knew he was exaggerating, talking dirty, but the words were like a slippery ice cube down her back. How close to crazy could the doctor be pushed before he reached the point of no return?

She could feel his length hardening further as he pumped in a tortuous rhythm against her thigh. His stubble brushed lightly against her collarbone and she let out a helpless moan.

"We should get some sleep, Oliver," Marilyn murmured, but she didn't even sound convincing to herself, let alone the doctor.

"I can't sleep." His long fingers spidered over the swell of her belly and down to the warm place waiting between her legs. "You're here, and you're mine, and you're carrying our child..." The very idea drew a low noise of arousal from his throat; he began moving the warm pad of his index finger over the sensitive little bud at the apex of her thighs. Pleasure shot through her like a bolt of electricity and she found herself moaning again.

"Baby," she whispered, her hips twitching towards his feathery-light touch.

Oliver grunted and took hold of her black negligee, pulling it over her head, his hands almost clumsy with desperation. He pressed his body against hers, the need for skin-to-skin contact suddenly and apparently overwhelming him. His palms ran along her curves in manic little strokes as though her flesh was water and he a man dying of thirst.

"All that work," he mumbled, nearly incoherent, "all that terrible work is behind me, I know it... no more Bloody Face, never again, never never again..."

His low voice was a throaty rumble against her collarbone as he split her legs with a quick jerking of his knee. Marilyn pressed her fingertips to the high handsome cheekbones of the doctor's face and mewled softly when his thick erection slipped inside her yet again. It seemed to happen so often, and more frequently these days.

"Mommy," Oliver gasped, repeating the word like a prayer over and over as he bucked his hips desperately. "Mommy, Mommy..."

He was becoming unhinged. Even through the haze of pleasure she was sure of this. Something about last night, her final spiralling descent into fully accepting her role as his mother and lover, had frayed the already thin seams that held together the doctor's sanity.

Marilyn clutched at his back. She buried her face into his shoulder; the smooth skin there smelled of clean soap and dark aftershave.

She thought she was taming the monster. Perhaps she had, instead, unleashed it.

"Stay with me, Oliver," she whispered. "I need you here, please, stay with me..."

His eyes met hers at once and their glassy sheen of madness chilled her to the bone.

He was a monster, he was insane, oh god, Lana was right! She was right! What an idiot she'd been, this was a nightmare, he had lost his mind and soon she would lose hers, it was only a matter of time...

She grasped wildly for any mental footing and found, with some shock, that she was still in control, that her careening thoughts were brought back on track, if not at the last moment possible.

Marilyn forced herself into action and placed a gentle kiss on the doctor's parted lips.

"Stay with me," she said again.

His hips stilled; Oliver's thick brows twisted into a small frown but at last she saw it clear, the terrible unsettling gleam of insanity lifting from his dark eyes and leaving behind the man who, while unpredictable and terrifying, could still be tender and caring and loved her in his own psychotic way.

He let out a shaky breath, pressed his forehead against hers, began thrusting again. Slower now.

"I'm here." Oliver closed his eyes, breaking the electric connection between their gazes at last. He seemed nearly as relieved as she was to be grounded again. Tiny drops of sweat had broken out on his face.

Marilyn peppered his cheek with light kisses as she felt sweet relief wash over her in waves, colliding with the waves of pleasure that had begun again with the pumps of his lithe hips.

"Oliver," she whispered, and what always happened happened again: she whimpered with desire and his seed pulsed into the warm wet place between her legs and that was okay because he was not lost just yet, even if she already was.

After their orgasms faded and his breathing had returned to normal the doctor rolled off of her and fell almost immediately into a deep, soundless sleep. It was Marilyn who now found herself wide awake, unable to shake the crystal-clear mental picture of his eyes shining with insanity. She ran her palm over the swollen curve of her belly and waited patiently for the sun to rise.

* * *

The next morning she pretended to rouse from sleep and greeted Oliver with a deep kiss and a motherly embrace. She smoothed the rumpled hair back from his face, pressed her lips to his forehead. Did what she could to keep him calm and happy and sane.

She was his protector. She kept him safe from the world, and the world safe from him.

He told her he was taking the day off. She nodded. Smiled. His words were like heavy rounded stones sinking to the bottom of a black pond.

Marilyn watched his perfect mouth tell her that he agreed, it was time to do what they should've done a long time ago - it was time to get rid of Lana.

He would go into the basement and strangle her. That would be the end of it. He knew Marilyn wanted to help but it was simply too dangerous. With the life growing in her womb he just couldn't put her in harm's way.

He sounded so calm and measured. The very picture of a mentally healthy young doctor. What he said, the careful cadence of his words, seemed to make so much sense. So again she nodded.

His fingers tangled in her hair. Oliver kissed her face and got quickly to his feet. There was no use in delaying the inevitable, he said; it was time for him to do his duty as a father. The very thought brought a bright childlike smile to his lips.

"I love you," Marilyn said, the words suddenly escaping her like water overflowing from a dam about to burst.

She wasn't sure who was more surprised, her or the doctor. Slowly his shock gave way to a kind of endearing determination and he gave her a brisk little nod.

"We won't have to worry about her anymore," Oliver murmured, and moved out the door before she could see the tears welling in his eyes. But of course, she had already seen.

The moment his tall lean frame left the doorway Marilyn leaned back into the pillows and fell almost immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep. The doctor was going to take care of things, and she would take care of the doctor, and all would be well again.

* * *

She awoke with a start, immediately aware that something was amiss.

Something had gone wrong. She could feel it in her bones, and in the aching of her breasts.

"Oliver?" Marilyn called, a high note of panic in her voice. She stumbled to her feet, one hand protectively cupping the little belly that held the son or daughter of Bloody Face.

She shuffled to the hallway, towards the basement, listening for anything that might tell her she was wrong, everything had gone fine, Oliver was just in the kitchen waiting for her to wake up.

The kitchen was empty. The door at the bottom of the stairs was closed.

"Oliver!" she cried this time as she nearly fell down the steps. "Oliver, where are you?"

There was light coming from the basement. Marilyn fumbled with the heavy soundproof door, flew around the corner and scanned the room frantically for Oliver, Lana, anyone.

"Baby?" she whispered, and in that moment she felt a bizarre sense of clairvoyance - before it even happened she somehow knew Lana would leap out from one of the dark corners of the basement, push past her and scramble up the stairs on all fours in her animal desperation to be free. Yet when it did happen Marilyn wasn't prepared, not even close to ready.

She only saw the reporter's drawn pale face for a split second before she was on her ass, a bright bolt of pain shooting up her spine to the base of her neck. Marilyn reached dumbly for the white cotton hem of that dreaded nightgown but it slipped through her fingers like a spiderweb on the wind.

Lana was moving fast, so fast, there was no time to look for Oliver to see what had happened to him. There was a brief moment of doubt where she knew this may be an end to her baby, the fall and what she was about to do, but it was the only answer. She had meant what she said: strangely, insanely enough, she did love him.

Marilyn leapt to her feet, adrenaline coursing through her veins like heroin, and went after Lana.


	9. Chapter 9

She had a head start, but Marilyn wasn't far behind.

At the top of the stairs she paused for a split second and surveyed the area. Lana had likely tried the front door first, but she would've found the series of formidable locks installed there too daunting to waste time on. The rug was bunched and askew; Marilyn could practically see the reporter's bare feet slipping on it as she changed directions and bolted for the plate-glass sliding doors that hid behind a set of long white curtains.

A blast of cold air hit her from behind and Marilyn turned on her heel, darting for the slim opening left in Lana's scrambling wake. Her rounded stomach prevented her from slipping through so easily and she cursed like a sailor until the glass door gave way, finally sliding on its tracks to release her from the living room to the bleak winter world outside.

The backyard was sparse, dead leaves and dry grass coated in a thin sheen of frost; it lead to a thick tangle of New England woods. In the gray December morning light Marilyn could see Lana disappearing through the trees, the long iron chain trailing behind her, one link at the tail end inexplicably broken.

She could feel the heartbeat in her ears like war drums as she took off after her, unaware of the sticks and stones beneath her own bare feet, the branches of the birch trees scraping her face — she felt nothing but rage and vengeance and cold clear fury.

Lana had put some distance between them but Marilyn was rapidly closing the gap. She moved with a strange sense of grace and power she'd never experienced; she had one brief moment to think it must be how a lioness felt taking down her prey before Lana suddenly stumbled over a fallen tree and then she was upon her.

"Stupid bitch," she spat, grabbing for Lana because even as she went down she was already scrambling away on her hands and knees, outstretched fingers raking through dead leaves for something to give herself leverage. Marilyn struck gold and yanked a handful of sweat-soaked brown hair as hard as she could manage.

Lana screamed and kicked backwards, missing Marilyn's stomach by mere inches. They struggled together like children wrestling in the dirt before Marilyn pulled again, gaining the upper hand and pinning Lana's slim body beneath her own at last.

The kick Lana didn't land had sent a strange tingling through Marilyn's limbs, an odd sensation she remembered feeling on her way to work one day when another car ran a stoplight only to slam on the brakes just before smashing into the side of her prized cherry-red cruiser. It was a spidery sort of tingle that seemed to say she had just barely escaped certain disaster, and now it melted into a steely-sharp thrum of pure and utter hatred.

Marilyn had never hit anyone before but her fist was suddenly on fire and there was blood coming from Lana's mouth - not a lot, yet enough that the sight satisfied her and Marilyn struck again, ignoring the pain that shot from her knuckles all the way to her elbow.

Lana was laughing, or maybe screaming, she couldn't be sure. The heartbeat in her ears was louder now, a legion of drums pounding in her head, drowning out everything else.

"He said you _loved _him," Lana managed, and spat out more blood onto the dead leaves. "How _romantic_."

So that was it. Oliver had been distracted, and somehow Lana had used it against him, turned the tables and escaped because he was still thinking about what Marilyn had said only moments before he descended into the basement. It was her own fault.

Marilyn hit her again.

"You tried to kill my baby, you stupid bitch," she growled. She wanted to break Lana's nose but the fingers of her right hand felt shattered and bruised, so instead she seized her rival by the collar of her now-filthy nightgown and slammed her against the frost-hardened ground.

_"He killed Wendy!" _Lana shrieked, and Marilyn did it again, relishing the meaty thudding sound her skull made.

"I _do _love him." She emphasized the word 'do' with a threatening little shake of the cotton nightdress wrapped tightly in her fists. "He was right about that. I _do."_

"Of course you do," Lana said in a queer trembling voice that Marilyn didn't like, not at all; it was the sound of someone finally losing their tenuous grip on sanity. "Oh, what a _story _this would make. I can see the headlines now: KIDNAP VICTIM SUCCUMBS TO STOCKHOLM SYNDROME, CLAIMS TO LOVE INFAMOUS MURDERER BLOODY FACE!"

Lana's brown eyes rolled in her head. Marilyn wondered briefly if she'd given her a concussion.

"Don't call him that," she hissed.

"Yeah, _that _would sell some papers, _that _would get my name on the front page, because isn't what all this was about? Isn't it?" Her gaze locked with Marilyn's. _"Isn't it?"_ Lana shouted, and suddenly Marilyn knew that Oliver had been right, he'd said it was hard at first but it got easier, and all at once it seemed so easy, so _obvious _what she must do next.

She wrapped her hands around Lana's throat and began to squeeze.

The reporter flopped beneath her like a dying fish at the bottom of a boat. Her fists beat at Marilyn's chest but she ignored it, this was long overdue, so long overdue. It was what she'd wanted to do all those months ago in the gray halls of the asylum, before the baby and the threesome and the night in the basement. The moment Lana had slapped Marilyn across the face like an insolent child, her fate had been sealed.

The muscles strained beneath her fingers; Marilyn could feel the struggle for breath, the manic butterfly-beat of her terrified pulse, but it was slowing, oh yes, it was slowing, and soon it would stop for good.

Lana struck out blindly, trying for a handful of thick blonde hair but got only the side of Marilyn's cheek; a jagged fingernail broke the skin just above her jawbone and Marilyn winced but there was no going back now. A thin trickle of blood dripped down her chin and fell onto Lana's in a brilliant red contrast to her pale skin.

She tightened her grip. The hands beating at her were growing weaker, the blows more and more feeble.

Lana was a fighter. She always had been. It was only in the last moments she seemed to finally realize that she couldn't fight forever, her brows meeting in a worried frown as her fingers began to scrabble hopelessly at the adrenaline-fueled hands around her neck.

"You knew this was how it would end," Marilyn whispered.

But it appeared that no, she hadn't, and even as the light faded from her eyes Lana tried to pry Marilyn's grip off of her throat, fighting for that last breath, the last precious moment of life that she supposed everyone fought for if given the chance.

At last her hands fell still. Her brown eyes unfocused. Marilyn couldn't feel the muscles straining or the beat of her pulse yet she couldn't let go, she couldn't believe it was truly over, surely it was a trick, Lana would spring back to life and land the kick that would kill her baby so she kept squeezing her numb throbbing fingers until suddenly the doctor was there, the dark scent of his aftershave announcing his arrival only seconds before he took her hands in his, peeling them from Lana's limp throat and pulling her body to his own in a tight embrace.

He didn't say anything at first, just made soft little hushing sounds of comfort as he stroked her hair because, Marilyn was surprised to note, she was crying, sobs escaping her in painful little bursts from somewhere deep in her chest. There was blood on his shirt; she wasn't sure if it was hers, or his, or Lana's.

"I'm so proud of you," he whispered into her ear, but he didn't sound proud, he sounded hollow and small and lost. She knew his eyes were probably on Lana, he was probably feeling something for his other 'mother' that he didn't fully understand but she didn't care because he was holding her and that was good.

Still sobbing, Marilyn took one of his strong hands in hers and placed it over her belly, pressing the pads of his long fingers against the tight little drum of a stomach that held their child, trying to remind him that this was what it was all for, this was why she had done what she did, for the fragile little life that hopefully still existed inside her broken exhausted body.

In the gray December morning's light, beneath the skeleton branches of the New England trees, they both felt it: like a single weak heartbeat against their palms, a kick.


End file.
